1985-1998 [Subscribe to Daily Digest] |
David - -
I don't know, never having tried this, but I think the tube is zinc, not aluminum, and if so and if you can clean it up enough and get corrosion out of the pits, maybe you can use solder, and acid flux, to fill the pits without heating the zinc enough to damage it.
Or, maybe better yet, a good epoxy might stick down in the pits and fill them, at least better than silicone sealer will.
You might try fooling around with some old zinc piece off a car, anything really, and a large soldering iron, and brush-on acid flux, and maybe the no-lead plumbing solder now being sold. The pits you will be soldering into will have been caused by corrosion so they will need to be free of it for solder to stick to them, and that may take some playing around, scrape and dig out as much as you can, soak in acid of some sort to get the remainder, brush to be sure, rinse, then try soldering.
After filling, dress up with a file to flush with original surface.
I actually did this on two badly pitted rear brake pistons from a Nissan I had, filled and smoothed them up enough to call usable, then realized a newer Nissan in the junkyard had similar calipers with identical pistons and cadged some perfect ones so didn't go forward with it.
That was soldering onto steel, and I had to use serious heat and vigorous brushing with flux and actually brushing the molten solder down into the pits with the flux brush to get a bond.
Just a little playing around with some scrap zinc part and some solder will tell you if this is doable or not. If it works, perfect your technique on some scrap item, then tackle your pipe. Do not try this with a torch, you'll melt your zinc piece.
If you go the epoxy route, I recommend 3M DP 420, available from 3M distributors or maybe on line somewhere. It bonds fiercely to steel, bonds to aluminum (have patched several radiators with it) and probably also bonds to zinc, though a test might be a good idea. It's a two-part, with two unequal tubes, and you need to buy a 3M trigger dispenser as well. Don't waste your money on the mixing tubes, they just use a lot of extra epoxy that you'll never get to use. Instead you can squirt the glue out onto a piece of cardboard and mix it there with a matchstick, then spread it. Fill holes over-full, then once hard, file to flush with original surface.
posted by 71.173.69...
No Site Registration is Required to Post - Site Membership is optional (Member Features List), but helps to keep the site online
for all Saabers. If the site helps you, please consider helping the site by becoming a member.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
